DVD Recorder for off-air digital/& with hard drive

I did a quick search and found this:

DVD Recorders with digital tuner and hard drive

Just wondering if any outlaws have any experience with dvd recorders with digital tuners. I thought a hard drive would be useful/helpful.

Some have NTSC as well as ATSC which could also be useful. Thoughts??? Suggestions??

NTSC tuners stopped being especially useful about four days ago. My old Panasonic DMR-E80 is still going strong, although I use it very rarely these days. I didn't look real closely at this - does the hard drive support recording HD content, or does it downscale to DVD resolution when recording? If it will record HD content, that'd be a great way to time-shift for an over-the-air HDTV.

Beware - the Panasonic not only downconverts HD to SD, but it downmixes surround info to stereo audio. IIRC any DVR with DVD standardizes on DVD, and shares its limitations.

But hey, if you have $2K not dropping like a rock in your 401(k) you can get yourself a nice BD-DVR...just not in the US. Yet.

My need for a DVR with digital tuner is for recording from PBS. They have some great documentaries and musical programs. No longer can we record from NTSC tuner.

At present not into HiDef. I don't subscribe to HD, nor do we plan to. We are happy with upscaling from Oppo BDP83 to Sony SXRD, at least for now.

So again: anyone have experience with (see above link).
Thanks

My experience is with equipment that is approaching six years old, so it's hardly current. Having said that, for basic time-shifting duties, my Panasonic DMR-E80 served us well for close to four years before I got an HD DVR cable box. I've not heard of any issues with newer Panasonic recorders, and if they've maintained the line as it appears that they have I'd say the Panasonic unit is worth looking at.